Volume 2, No. 4. February 22, 2002
New Arrivals
It's
a resort!
Gaylord Entertainment announces the arrival of the Gaylord Palms Resort and
Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida, February 2, 2002. Measurements: 64
acres, 1,406 rooms, 115 suites, 400,000 square feet ( 121,212 square meters)
of meeting space, 178,000-square-foot (53,939-square-meter) exhibition hall,
three themed entertainment areas, one business center, two swimming pools, one
spa and fitness center, three restaurants, three bars, 14 shops, and a 4,000-square-foot
(1,212-square-meter) child care center. Delivered by Cosentini Associates (lighting),
EDSA (landscape), Hnedak Bobo Group (architecture), ITEC Entertainment Corporation
(entertainment), Lorenc Yoo Design (signage), P.B.S.& J. (civil engineering),
Pelton Marsh Kinsella (acoustics and audio visual theatrics), Thornton-Tomasettie
Engineers and Uzun & Case (structural engineering).
When Gaylord Entertainment officials broke ground on their ambitious, $450 million resort and convention center —the most expensive hotel built outside of Las Vegas—in June 1999, they promised the hotel would open on February 2, 2002. They liked the symmetry of the date: 02/02/02. Even the resort's public relations manager admits that announcing so specific an opening date that early is "crazy."
But at 2:02 p.m. that afternoon, a ceremony in the Palms' grand atrium featuring Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Gaylord Entertainment CEO Colin Reed concluded with a pyrotechnic display and 100-foot (30-meter) banners unfurling from the ceiling. That's 14,02 on the international clock, of course. "We thought about doing it at 2:02 a.m.," Salwoski said, "but it's hard to get the governor to come to your event at 2 in the morning, and the pyro going off would disturb the guests."
Guests began staying at the Palms on January 10 as the resort first hosted small groups, gradually ramping up to larger groups. Even as the official opening event was progressing in the atrium, guests attending the Palms' first convention, the American Bus Association, were checking in.
The resort is expressly
designed with the meeting clientele in mind. "We built it around an experience,"
Salwoski said. "The top two reasons people attend conventions is for the education
and to network. What happens in most places is that once the meetings are over,
there's nothing to do. We built this so there's something else to do here. We
give groups a reason to stay together." Most of that strategy plays out in the
three themed entertainment areas. The Everglades features a storyteller's shack,
with live actors. Key West hosts a sunset celebration every evening with street
performers. St. Augustine is centered on the Fountain of Youth, a fountain show
with narration of Ponce de Leon.
"In Orlando, the second largest hotel market behind Vegas, nobody has really built a resort or hotel focused on meetings and conventions," Salwoski said. Is Orlando the right kind of market for such an enterprise? Gaylord Entertainment already has its answer. The resort booked more than one million room nights, all pre-sold to groups through 2011, before the hotel even opened. And it opened right on time.